Linux Mint 21.2 Promoted To Beta With Desktop Improvements, HEIF & AVIF Support

[skeevy420]

Good but...
Linux Mint was cool 10 years ago.
Now its developers refuse:

• To support KDE Plasma (as a first-class citizen)
• To rebase Cinnamon on a newer version of Gnome
• To make Debian their main distro base, instead of Ubuntu.

I see nothing I see nothing attracting / valuable in Linux Mint and because of that I also stop recommending it to people a long time ago.
It could've been much more, but it seems they don't want that, they want Linux Mint to be just a bit better than Ubuntu, which for some parts even that is not completely accomplished and Ubuntu is a very low bar anyway.

The whole point of Mint is the Cinnamon desktop so I don't see KDE ever happening. If you want Ubuntu and KDE, there's Kubuntu and Neon. If you want Debian and KDE, just use that.

I used to use LMDE way back in the day before I switched to Arch and Arch derivatives full time. I checked and the current LMDE is based on Debian 11. Since Debian 12 is less than a month old, give Clem some time to update it. The Mint blog says they're gonna have LMDE 6 based on 12 as soon as they can.

Anyways, the value of Mint is the Cinnamon Desktop Environment on either Ubuntu or Debian. A simple, classical desktop environment running on two of the most popular Linux distributions. It doesn't offer more than that, nor does it try to. That's what most people like about it. It's full featured, yet generic. It's something you can make your own.

Judging by some of y'all's replies, y'all clearly didn't know LMDE existed. It'd be so hard to do all the work that's already done while dropping half our work load

[skeevy420]

Ubuntu is a very low bar anyway.

OK, I couldn't resist:

[Monsterovich]

[*]To rebase Cinnamon on a newer version of Gnome

Well done Cinammon developers! GNOME is crap.

[Flaburgan]

Danny3 dude, what the... ? Do you even know what you're talking about? Mint was supporting KDE and they dropped because it was too much work while not providing enough value as every other distros already support it. And Linux Mint also has a version based on Debian. All of this works super well I don't know which problems you had with game but I have none. Looks like you never followed the project.

[Estranged1906]

Good but...
Linux Mint was cool 10 years ago.
Now its developers refuse:

• To support KDE Plasma (as a first-class citizen)
• To rebase Cinnamon on a newer version of Gnome
• To make Debian their main distro base, instead of Ubuntu.

I see nothing I see nothing attracting / valuable in Linux Mint and because of that I also stop recommending it to people a long time ago.
It could've been much more, but it seems they don't want that, they want Linux Mint to be just a bit better than Ubuntu, which for some parts even that is not completely accomplished and Ubuntu is a very low bar anyway.

1. Plasma is my favourite desktop but I can understand that they dropped it because all the other DEs they support (Cinnamon, MATE, Xfce) are GTK3-based so there's lots of synergies and it's more the work of supporting 1.5 desktops rather than 3. Plasma would add a lot of extra work.
2. Why? Gnome is shit. Its workflow is atrocious. CSDs are horrible. You need a dozen extensions to use it. The whole point using Cinnamon, MATE or Xfce is that you don't want GNOME. It would be great though if the Mint team could coordinate further cooperation between Cinnamon, MATE and Xfce. In the end, these three desktop are doing the same, have a similar workflow, similar customizability, use the same technologies. I would love to see them merge eventually and create a "big" third desktop based on a hard fork of GTK3.
3. What's the point of LMDE anyway? How does it improve anything for the user? The only difference seems to be that it doesn't have a graphical driver manager (taken from Ubuntu I believe) and only supports Cinnamon. Also Ubuntu has the best third-party support, so if you need some proprietary or commercial app you know it will definitely support Ubuntu LTS, but not necessarily other distros including Debian.

[Danny3]

Danny3 dude, what the... ? Do you even know what you're talking about? Mint was supporting KDE and they dropped because it was too much work while not providing enough value as every other distros already support it. And Linux Mint also has a version based on Debian. All of this works super well I don't know which problems you had with game but I have none. Looks like you never followed the project.

Dude, I know what I'm talking about and I followed the project until they dropped the KDE edition.
They dropped it because it was based on Qt and they were too lazy to build a DE and programs based on Qt.
And because they have all those X-crap apps that they share between the GTK based DEs and they want to push forward.
Those in-house apps are underdeveloped and no match to VLC and professional KDE apps that are based on Qt.
Do I need to say that Qt is also a better toolkit than GTK from what many developers are saying?

Yes KDE was and still is supported by other distros, but it never had the polish and attention to details that Linux Mint developers managed to bring to it.

And yes, I know that Linux Mint has the LMDE version based on Debian, but that's not their main focus, the Ubuntu one is and since they are complaining that building a DE based on Qt is too much for their resources, how is it having to support two different distro bases?
They should just stick with one tand that's it.
And Debian would be better as it's not steered by Canonical and you don't have to de-bloat, de-Snap it to remove all the junk Canonical has put in.

Anyway, if you think Linux Mint has a future, then use it, I don't think it has a future with the decisions it has made.

[DavidBrown]

Good but...
Linux Mint was cool 10 years ago.
Now its developers refuse:

• To support KDE Plasma (as a first-class citizen)
• To rebase Cinnamon on a newer version of Gnome
• To make Debian their main distro base, instead of Ubuntu.

I see nothing I see nothing attracting / valuable in Linux Mint and because of that I also stop recommending it to people a long time ago.
It could've been much more, but it seems they don't want that, they want Linux Mint to be just a bit better than Ubuntu, which for some parts even that is not completely accomplished and Ubuntu is a very low bar anyway.

If you don't like Mint, that's fine. There are lots of Linux distributions to suit all tastes - there is no need or point for any one distribution to support everything or everyone. Some people like a distribution with focus on a particular desktop, others like a variety. Some people want very stable versions of software, others wan the bleeding edge. Some want full-featured, others want lightweight. Pick what suits you, and let others pick what suits them.

In regard to your specific points, Mint was founded on the premise that Ubuntu was quite good for a lot of people, but many were not keen on the desktop appearance. Initially, Mint was no more nor less than Ubuntu with a nice, fresh green theme instead of the Ubuntu brown colouring. As Ubuntu has moved through a variety of desktops and interfaces through the years, Mint has offered an alternative that is stable and well-suited to many users. Let those who want a space-age "cool" desktop use KDE. Let those who want an overgrown mobile phone use whatever Ubuntu calls its desktop these days. Let those who want a computer that looks and works like a computer, and a desktop that stays out of your way use Mate or Cinnamon. People who use computers as tools, and use desktops as a way to run the software they need, are rarely interested in the latest "cool" features - they want things to look and work in basically the same way all the time.

As for basing Mint on Ubuntu LTS, there are many good reasons for that. Ubuntu has done a lot of user-level work on top of Debian (they contribute little to the lower levels). Some of what they have done is good, some is bad (like lock-in Snaps and questionable deals with commercial third parties). Mint takes the good stuff and leaves out the bad - exactly the way open source development should work. There is also the vital point for professional users that Ubuntu LTS is seen as a major distribution. So commercial software vendors that provide Linux software will almost always support Ubuntu, along with things like RHEL, but they cannot support everything - they rarely support "pure" Debian.

But to be on the safe side, Mint has an on-going project with a Debian-based version of Mint. If ever Ubuntu LTS is not the right choice in the future, they are ready.

So for me, Mint is the professional distribution, for people who want to think the OS and desktop is there to let them run the software they actually want to use. It may not be the ideal choice if you want to make teenage Windows users jealous of your 3D desktop effects, but there are other distros to choose from if that's your preference.

[leigh123linux]

Dude, I know what I'm talking about and I followed the project until they dropped the KDE edition.
They dropped it because it was based on Qt and they were too lazy to build a DE and programs based on Qt.
And because they have all those X-crap apps that they share between the GTK based DEs and they want to push forward.
Those in-house apps are underdeveloped and no match to VLC and professional KDE apps that are based on Qt.
Do I need to say that Qt is also a better toolkit than GTK from what many developers are saying?

Yes KDE was and still is supported by other distros, but it never had the polish and attention to details that Linux Mint developers managed to bring to it.

And yes, I know that Linux Mint has the LMDE version based on Debian, but that's not their main focus, the Ubuntu one is and since they are complaining that building a DE based on Qt is too much for their resources, how is it having to support two different distro bases?
They should just stick with one tand that's it.
And Debian would be better as it's not steered by Canonical and you don't have to de-bloat, de-Snap it to remove all the junk Canonical has put in.

Anyway, if you think Linux Mint has a future, then use it, I don't think it has a future with the decisions it has made.

Clem dropped KDE because it was to hard to polish.

[Teadrinker]

Have you seen how many people are complaining about black screen, freezes, multi-monitor or windowing problems or that some game doesn't work correctly on Linux Mint?
What's one of the main causes for that?

I've been gaming on Linux Mint 21.1 (migrating from win 7) for the last 8 months (rdna2 gpu and haswell -4790k- cpu and kernel 6.0.1) and literally just "1" crash (soft gpu crash) has happened to me so far and on a severely buggy game too (Hogwarts Legacy).. 1 crash in 8 months!!! on native windows games i experience far more crashes..
Many modern games such as Plague Tale Requiem have been working almost out of the box for me... (i say almost because steam has been very buggy so i use lutris which is less out-of-the-box than steam)..
Not a single freeze, black screen or a game not working in 8 months of linux gaming so far for me ...

[Vistaus]

I can't comment on 1st and 3rd point, but for the 2nd point, right in the new feature page https://www.linuxmint.com/rel_victor...n_whatsnew.php

I don't see where you get the "refuse" to "rebase" opinion. Not working fast enough (probably because of lack of manpower) is not a refusal to work.

So they dropped their entire desktop environment Cinnamon in favor of a picture organizer and editor?

I don't think you read his post correctly.